Project Casita

[The Swiss]

Some orphan trailer followed me home today and made herself at home in my garage.



She definitely is a project:

• Years of grit coverening the outside of the trailer
• Plywood floor rotten out
• Various press wood cabinet doors bent out of shape by humidity and probably beyond help
• Fresh water tank beyond help
• Water heater beyond help
• Water pump beyond help

On the good side, the shell is good, all the interior fiberglass parts are complete, the frame just has surface rust and she came with a new fridge and a new air conditioning still in the box.

Always wanted a live-in camper but oh boy, what was I thinking? This will be sloooooooow going …

 

[Toyotero]

Nice, I've wanted to find one of these for awhile.

 

[TexGX]

Welcome to the Casita family. All the issues you mentioned the floor will be the biggest project. The doors on the cabinets are easy if you have the old doors for templets. I changed out all the doors in one long day. Looking forward to seeing what you do with it.

http://www.casitaclub.com/forums/topic/6867-the-mutt-hutt-is-done/page__hl__texgx#entry55682

Mine is not built for major off-road, but it may give you some ideas.

TexGX

 

[Overland Hadley]

Great project!

 

[The Swiss]

Welcome to the Casita family. All the issues you mentioned the floor will be the biggest project. The doors on the cabinets are easy if you have the old doors for templets. I changed out all the doors in one long day. Looking forward to seeing what you do with it.

http://www.casitaclub.com/forums/topic/6867-the-mutt-hutt-is-done/page__hl__texgx#entry55682

Mine is not built for major off-road, but it may give you some ideas.

TexGX

I noticed that there is a "Casita cult". Signed up at the Casitaclub. I'm sure I will be the newbie asking embarassing questions but I'm trying to be quite and learn for now.

The floor will be the biggest task. I did some reading about a guy who saved plywood components on a boat by saturating the wood with thinned epoxy. Might work for the Casita floor too if it is not in too bad shape. I think I will give it a try; in the worst case I lost $20 worth of epoxy and a couple hours work. Would just be nice not having to remove the entire kitchen and bathroom etc etc. We'll see. I will keep you posted.

 

[TexGX]

There is a ton of great information on that site. Everyone is more then willing to help. If I can just let me know.

TexGX

 

[The Swiss]

Did not have too much time to do too much yet.

Outside is cleaned (for the the biggest part); she is almost pretty now.



Ripped all the floor covering out. Under the venyl tiles and a thin layer of rotten wood (I think one of the previous owners just covered the problem); the plywood is really soaked.





The plywood is directly on the fiberglass floor with no ventilation. It acts like a sponge in a tub, it is not just all water from leaky windows that gets trapped there, also inside humidity condesates at the cold fiberglass and gets absorbed by the plywood. I will put a heater in the trailer to really dry it out.



Good thing is that the carpet on the walls and everything else are in surprising good shape.



Well, the dogs enjoy inspecting the trailer. I am sure their noses are telling them a lot more about the previous owners than I ever will know.

 

[The Swiss]

Finally had a chance to work on my Casita trailer. I did clean her outside but other than than, not much was done so far because the soaked floors had to be completely dried out first. I originally had planned on trying to save the floors which showed a good amount of dry-rot with penetrating epoxy. Well, once the floor was dry, it had the consistency of a wood chips and saw dust and reseombled more some forrest soil than anything you expect in a trailer, with other words, way past of salvable. Under the bathroom and in the closet however the floor appears to be in reasonably good shape. After consulting the Casita Forum, I decided to cut the wood close along the cabinets and just replace the floor in the isle. The cutting went easier than I thought but then I was in for another of these nice surprises that make a restauration so much fun: this present floor is most likely already a replacement of the original floor. Instead of it being screwed to the frame as according to my sources it should have been, it was kind of glued to the fiberglass bottom and the screws were replaced with nails!!! So, the ¾ of the particle board that had rotted came out very easily, almost like digging in dirt, The remaining ¼ of the board however remains firmly stuck to the bottom. Removing it is about as much fun and as quick as removing 45 layers of olive drab paint of an old army vehicle.



After a couple hours of scraping there was very little skin left on my knuckles; I called it a day.

My trailer came with smallish 13” wheels.



I was able to get the 15” wheels of my previous trailer back. They fitted the Casita perfectly.



She still sits a little low behind my Jeep but much better than before.





Down the road I will either replace the regular Dexter axle with a 22 or a 45 degree version, or install a lift that is offered for the Casita.

 

[TheThom]

That floor project sounds awful. But I'm sure there will be nice light at the end of the tunnell

 

[jim65wagon]

This looks to be a great and fun project! It's a cool looking trailer, enjoy it well.

 

[Overland Hadley]

That floor project sounds awful.

No kidding, that is miserable work.

 

[The Swiss]

Scraping, scraping scraping ... but slowely but surely getting better.

 

[TheThom]

You'll be glad you did it right. Nice job

 

[The Swiss]

Time to post a quick update. Have been working on the trailer over the last couple months, 1/2 hours at a time whenever I found some time.


I finished removing the old floor and replaced it with 1/2" "marine grade" plywood. "Marine grade" is actually not in reference to the wood itself, which did not come fully water proved, but the glue used in the plywood is waterproofed. After cutting and carefully fitting the floor to the correct size - remember, I removed the floor in the entire rear area and the isle where it was really bad, left it alone under cabinets where it was still fairly solid - and drilling all the holes, I coated the plywood with about 10 layers of transparent acrylic wood paint. Once fitted in the trailer, I attached the floor with stainless screws through the fiberglass bottom into the trailer's chassis. I learned that to do so is very important as this is how the Casita's fiberglass hull is actually attached to the frame.


In the transition area from the new to the old wood, I applied silicone to fill minor gaps and to coat the old wood to give it some more waterproofing.






I decided to cover the entire floor with Trafficmaster allure resilient vinyl flooring instead of carpeting. This vinyl flooring is heavy duty, water proved and looks good.




After replacing the floor, I had to re-built the support for the rear benches to re-installed the original fiberglass pieces.




Instead of having two dinette areas (and because the large table for the rear dinette is missing), I decided to install a permanent bed in the rear and just use the mid dinette as such.



So far I am happy with the outcome. It is not a high class, high dollar restoration, but my Casita is slowly turning into a solid, honest and functional camper.



Next: Installing a fridge, having the gas lines checked and then taking her for a shake down weekend trip..

 

[TexGX]

Looks great.